Can you believe how straight these embroidery lines are? If you love geometric and graphic art as much as me, and want to try your hand at it, this is an easy way (and cheap too) to exercise your artistic side with an embroidery needle and thread.

Supplies Needed:

- plastic canvas (aim for the smallest opening that will work for your embroidery needle and yarn)

- #18 embroidery needle

- yarn in various colors

- empty frame

- scissors

Step One: Using yarn, block out a space of your canvas according to the opening of your frame. You want the space you're working in to fill the frame perfectly without the frame covering up any embroidery, because in the end, you can't trim away the embroidery if you've made the piece too big.

Step Two: Create the main design of your piece, tying off the ends of each color of yarn on the back of the canvas. After creating the design shown above, fill in the areas with neutral yarn to create a background (as shown below).

Tip: Be careful not to string the yarn across too great of an area, or the design will become difficult to control. If you pull too tightly, it will bend the canvas, and even a small amount of bending will not be corrected by the stability of the frame when mounting the embroidery piece.

Step Three: Trim away the excess canvas so it will fit inside your frame. Be sure to remove the blocking yarn from step one. Pop this puppy into a frame, and the project is complete!

Problems to Avoid: The plastic mesh comes in different sizes. Get one that isn't too big.

Also, don't pull the threads too tight because it will warp the plastic canvas and ruin your design. Besides that, it won't fit into a frame the right way.